The Miniaturist(14)
There is a map of the African continent, huge, so much unknown. Ringed in the centre of the western coastline is a place called Porto-Novo. There are questions written over it, in Marin’s neat hand. Weather? Food? God? There is a map of the Indies, with many more circles and arrows, marking from where the flora and fauna found in this room have come. Molucca 1676, Batavia 1679, Java 1682 – all voyages Marin has surely never made herself.
On the table by the window is an open notebook, and it appears to contain a detailed categorization of all these things. Marin’s handwriting flows better than her speech, and Nella recognizes it from the envelope that was sent to her mother earlier this year. She feels again the trespasser’s tension – desperate to stay and find out more, but dreading the trap she has wilfully set herself. I’m no more mistress of this house than little Arabella back in Assendelft, she thinks.
Further along the shelf is a strange-looking lamp, with the wings of a bird and a woman’s head and breasts. Nella reaches out to touch its cool, thick metal. Next to the lamp is a pile of books, and their pages emanate a loamy mix of damp and pigskin. Nella lifts the top one off the pile, too curious about Marin’s reading habits to think about anyone coming up the stairs.
The first book is a travel journal entitled The Unfortunate Voyage of the Ship Batavia. Most people in the United Provinces are familiar with the story of Corneliszoon’s mutiny, the infamous onboard enslavement of Lucretia Jans and her implication in the murders of survivors. Nella is no exception, but her mother hated the more salacious aspects of the story. ‘It’s because of that Jans woman that ladies no longer sail so much, and a good thing too,’ Nella’s father had observed when he was still alive. ‘Women on board bring bad luck.’
‘They only bring the luck men give them,’ Mrs Oortman had retorted.
Nella closes the book, puts it back and runs her fingers delicately over the uneven bump and jut of the spines. There are so many books here – and as much as she would like to read all the titles, she knows she cannot dawdle. Marin must spend a good guilder on this habit, Nella supposes, rubbing the luxurious paper.
Beneath The Unfortunate Voyage is a book by Heinsius, who everyone knows is banished from the country for manslaughter. It is almost a crime to own it, and the fact that Marin has a copy astonishes Nella. There is also a folio edition of Saeghman’s Almanac, Children’s Diseases by Stephanus Blankaart and Bontekoe’s The Memorable Accounts of the Voyage of the Nieuw Hoorn. Nella flicks through. Bontekoe’s accounts are tales of voyage and peril, full of brilliant woodcuts, ribs of shipwrecks, great sunrises and swallowing seas. One woodcut depicts a shoreline, waves in the background cushioning a large vessel. In the foreground, two men face each other. The first man has his arms and legs filled in with fine black lines, a ring through his nose and a spear in his hand. The other is dressed in the old-fashioned style of a Dutchman. Their expressions are the same, however. Impassive, trapped in their own closed orb of experience, the gap between them wider than the sea beyond.
The spine is flexible, the book has been used often. As Nella moves to put it back on the pile, a piece of paper covered in writing falls from its middle pages. She scoops it from the floor and the words charge her blood.
I love you. I love you. From back to front, I love you.
Nella feels a tingling sensation in the roof of her mouth. In a daze, she puts the book back, unable to let go of the extraordinary note. There are more words on the scrap of paper – hasty, dancing words not in Marin’s handwriting.
You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed.
One touch lasts a thousand hours. My darling—
Pain shoots through Nella’s arm – someone grips it tightly and won’t let go. Marin looms, white-faced, turning Nella around like a rag doll. The note flutters to the floor, and Nella covers it with her foot as Marin drags her away. ‘Did you look at my books?’ Marin hisses. ‘Did you?’
‘No – I—’
‘Yes you did. Did you open them?’
‘Of course not—’
Marin adjusts her grip, her hand shaking from the pressure. ‘Marin—’ Nella gasps. ‘It hurts. You’re hurting me.’
For a couple more seconds, Marin does not let go, then Nella wrenches herself free. ‘I’ll tell my husband,’ she shouts. ‘I’ll show him what you’ve done!’
‘We don’t like traitors,’ Marin hisses. ‘Go. Now.’
Nella stumbles away, straight into the snakeskin in her hurry to escape. ‘These things don’t belong to you!’ Marin calls after her. She slams her door and the scent of spice evaporates.
Safely on the island of her own bed, Nella murmurs to her pillow, her mouth dry and mind incredulous. One touch lasts a thousand hours. That ink was secret nectar, for Marin isn’t married.
The writing was scrawled but Nella is sure it was not Marin’s. I should never have gone in there, she thinks. Perhaps Marin was even waiting in the darkness, to catch me in the act? She imagines her sister-in-law stringing her up on one of the ceiling beams, pattens falling off her swinging feet among the feathers, her cold body warmed by poetic sunlight through a window.
Marin starts to shift in Nella’s mind. From her drab black clothes, Marin rises like a phoenix, enveloped in her nutmeg scent – no lily for her, no floral nicety. Covered in the symbols of the city, Marin is a daughter of its power – she is a secret surveyor of maps, an annotator of specimens – an annotator of something else as well, not so easy to slot into a category. Nella imagines the smell of spice on Marin’s skin, hearing her across the damask tablecloth, telling her brother exactly how to trade. Who is this woman? From back to front, I love you.